Aright I've NEVER had this happen before. I installed a sound card I've had for a while, I know it's not defective so that's the case here.

I install it, and it can't be used because 'It cant find any resources'

So I use good ole windows troubleshooting and it says to assign a different IRQ to one that's not being used and low and behold it says 'Uncheck the auto assign" which is nice and greyed out so I can't do it.

It's "Error Code 12" which specifically said, something else is using that IRQ.

I can't change the IRQ's and in one PCI Slot it's somehow running on IRQ 19 which is my graphics and in another slot it says IRQ 18 which is my SATA/RAID controller...

Anyone else ever have this problem and what did you do to fix it?

BTW Yes I did disable onboard audio in the BIOS, so that's not the issue either.

My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure you begin doing a Windows Installation repair, and when the prompt comes up to push F6 to install mass storage device drivers, you instead hit F7 which I am quite certain will install the standard hardware abstraction layer which disables IRQ steering and allows for manual IRQ assignment.

I am not positive though, I haven't had this issue in quite a while. I do know that you have to install the HAL and that can only be done through the xp installation, I just can't excatly remember the proccess you take to install it.

I know it isn't much - but check for a bios update and then open the new bios and see if you can take of the auto-assignment of IRQ's.

If / When you are able to do this, follow up by assigning a new IRQ to the sound card, perhaps one you have for a PS2 Mouse (if you use usb mouse you dont need this IRQ, the usb IRQ can hold 127 devices). The same goes for keyboard. After hat I wuld take from your serial ports, unless you are actually using them, which I doubt. GL.

I was able to turn off "Auto assign IRQ's" in the BIOS, but that did nothing =/

Gaara, I don't even understand what you're suggesting lol

Yes I'm using a normal PS2 mouse and keyboard and not using any serial ports.

And I haven't been able to find where I can assign the IRQ to a specific device. When in manual mode in the BIOS it just shows like IRQ1-10 or so and it's either set to PCI Device (all of them are that) or you can change it to RESERVED

In windows, where the lame windows troubleshooter said to adjust the IRQ's it doesn't let me uncheck the 'Automatically assign IRQ's" even when that option is turned off in the BIOS =/

You need to install the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) via the Windows Installation, which will allow you to make more versatile hardware changes, or basically, allow you to manually assign the IRQ rather than having Windows automatically assign it. In laymens terms, it will ungrey that little check box you have located.

Some sound cards have a legacy component to them, which often uses a second IRQ & 2 DMAs. I would have thought that if this is the case with yours, the conflict would be with the legacy component, as these can't IRQ share.

If so, reserving an IRQ in the Bios for it (i.e assign to ISA instead of PCI) might prevent anything else from using that IRQ & allow the sound card to use it.

On the other hand, this is Windows we're talking about, so it might just completely knacker up loads of stuff instead!!

I know my hardware decent enough, but as far as the internals of windows go, most of the time it's just a nuisance for me.

I saw that the IRQ was the same as my graphics card in one point, and as far as the I/O range goes I couldn't find anything sharing that with it, and I didn't look under the DMA part, but currently without the card in there there's only